On the morning of 2 August 2016, the air in Varanasi was heavy with excitement and preparations were underway for a massive political rally that had been announced by the INC. Sonia Gandhi, then president of the INC, had arrived in the city earlier that morning and was set to undertake a massive roadshow through the city later that day. This event had been organised with considerable fanfare to launch the INC's campaign for the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly election that was scheduled to take place in early 2017.

After arriving at the Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport, Sonia Gandhi's motorcade headed off towards the Varanasi Circuit House, which was supposed to be the starting point of her 6.4-kilometre-long roadshow. Along the journey to the Circuit House, an estimated 10,000–15,000 bikers drove alongside her motorcade as part of a public display of strength for the INC. Gandhi inaugurated her rally by paying her respects at B. R. Ambedkar's statue near Kachahari Chauraha and thereafter set off on a winding course towards the neighbourhood of Englishiya Line, where she intended to culminate her rally by garlanding the bust of Kamlapati Tripathi (a veteran INC leader and former union minister) and by delivering a short speech to the press. During the course of the afternoon, as the INC's cavalcade slowly made its way through the narrow streets of Varanasi, thousands of citizens came out to witness the roadshow where they were greeted by a flurry of rose petals, INC party flags and the sight of Gandhi emerging from a white Mercedes, waving at them. In the teeming crowds that jostled along the cavalcade, one could find stern-looking security personnel in charcoal safari suits, police constables in khaki uniforms and INC party workers dressed in their traditional attire of white khadi (handwoven natural fibre). Amidst these familiar dramatis personae that animate all political rallies in India, also present that day was a group of individuals who had played a significant, albeit discreet, role in the organisation of the roadshow. Recognisable only through their outfits that consisted of black T-shirts and blue denim jeans, these individuals were the employees of Prashant Kishor's political consulting firm I-PAC, which had been hired by Rahul Gandhi a few months earlier to manage the INC's election campaign in Uttar Pradesh.